Iran Unveils New Homegrown Satellites, Says Trump a Political Novice

Local Editor

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday unveiled 3 new achievements in the space industry, including two satellites manufactured by domestic experts and academic centers.

In a ceremony in Tehran marking the National Day of Space Technology, President Rouhani unveiled the Nahid-1 [Venus-1] and Payam-e-Amirkabir [Amirkabir's message] satellites, as well as an orbital maneuvering system dubbed Saman-1.

The president also paid a visit to an exhibition of achievements of Iranian Space Research Center [ISRC], held on the sidelines of the ceremony.

Known as Iran's first telecommunication satellite, Nahid-1 has been developed by the ISRC experts. The technology used in making the satellite is one that has been the basis for Iran's progress in the communication satellite technology.

Nahid-1 uses photovoltaic solar panels in orbit and uses the Ku band for communication.

The other satellite, Payam-e-Amirkabir, has been made in Tehran's Amirkabir University of Technology with the mission to take surveying images at resolutions below 40 meters. Equipped with a range of homegrown technologies, the satellite will go into orbit with a local carrier.

Another major achievement made by the ISRC technicians is Saman-1, a system for controlling the orbital transition of satellites.

For the first mission, Saman-1 will be used to transfer a 100-kilogram satellite from a low Earth orbit about 400 km above the Earth's surface to a higher elliptical orbit at an altitude of 700 km.

Iran, in recent years, made great headways in manufacturing satellites. It launched into orbit its first indigenous data-processing satellite, Omid [Hope], in February 2009.

In January 2013, Iran sent a monkey into space aboard an indigenous bio-capsule code-named Pishgam [Pioneer].

Speaking at the ceremony, the Iranian president called for efforts to promote domestic capabilities in the field of space technology by drawing on relevant international experience.

Elsewhere in his comments, Rouhani once again slammed US President Donald Trump's ban on the entry of travelers from seven Muslim-majority nations as well as all refugees into the country.

The Iranian President dismissed his US counterpart Donald Trump as a political novice saying "He [Trump] is new to politics. He has been in a different world. It's a totally new environment to him."

"It will take him a long time and will cost the US a lot, until he learns what is happening in the world," added Rouhani, who led a rapprochement with Washington under Trump's predecessor Barack Obama.

Rouhani previously said, in an apparent reference to Trump's promise to build a barrier along the US border with Mexico, "Today is not a time for separating nations by walls".

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team